JOEL EDGERTON

Date of Birth
23 June 1974, Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia

Height
5' 11" (1.80 m)

Mini Biography
Joel Edgerton was born on 23 June, 1974 in Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia. He went to Hills Grammar School in the Western Suburbs of Sydney, and after leaving, he attended Nepean Drama School in 1994. Joel has done many projects on stage and off, but most people will recognize him from his work on the Australian television show, The Secret Life Of Us, in which he played the character of Will. This gave him his first big break through in the television industry. For this role, he was nominated in 2001 for an AFI Award. As well as The Secret Life of Us, he has also appeared in other television projects such as The Three Stooges (2000) (TV), "Dossa and Joe" (2002), Secret Men's Business (1999) (TV), Never Tell Me Never (1998) (TV), and Saturn's Return (2001) (TV). Joel has done a lot of work on the theatrical stage having played King Henry in Henry V, Prince Hal in Henry III, and others including Road, Third World Blues, and Dead White Males. As well as acting he has also starred, co-written and produced the movie Bloodlock.

His first international break came from when he played Uncle Owen in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002). Since then he has also starred in Ned Kelly (2003), King Arthur (2004), and the up coming Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005).

Trade Mark
Cheekbones


Trivia
The Edgerton brothers have collaborated on several film projects.

Joel's brother, Nash Edgerton, was also in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002). Nash was the stunt double for Ewan McGregor (Obi-wan Kenobi).

Joel appears in the video clip for Ben Lee's (Claire Danes's then-boyfriend) 2002 single 'Something Borrowed, Something Blue'. The clip was directed by Joel's brother, Nash Edgerton.

Attended Hills Grammar School in Sydney's north-west.

When he graduated from high school he attended University of Western Sydney-Nepean Kingswood Campus and studied Drama there

Is the second Star Wars actor to have played Sir Gawain in a King Arthur movie. Liam Neeson played the role in Excalibur (1981).

Auditioned for the role of "Ty-Zor" in McG's now-aborted version of "Superman."

Starred in Ned Kelly (2003) with Orlando Bloom. Bloom in turn starred with Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). Kiera also starred in King Arthur (2004) with Edgerton.

Studied acting at Theatre Nepean in Sydney, Australia.

Founding member of 'Blue-Tongue Films'.

His short film, Monkeys (2011), was selected for Australian short film event Final Cut in 2012, where it was awarded the Audience Favourite Prize alongside short films from award-winning filmmakers David Ludlow [Drifting (2010)] and Kelly Hucker [Kwik Fix (2010)].


Personal Quotes
[on Smokin' Aces] I'm not a huge advocate of violence for violence's sake, but what makes this film OK in that regard for me is that it's a heightened reality. It's kind of like Ocean's Eleven on acid - it's hyper-real, cartoon violence.

[on how important it is to him that he's involved in other facets of filmmaking besides acting] Well, it's great. I mean, it's great to have that opportunity. It's just been like, without meaning it to sound too arrogant, I have a lot of stuff in me that I know I can do and I've wanted to have the opportunity to do and now thanks to people like Gavin O'Connor and David Michod, I'm starting to kind of spread my wings a little bit more and get new opportunities. And I'm fucking ready for them and I'm dying to do more stuff, but at the same time I want to keep writing projects. I want to write characters that I want to play. I want to direct. I want to do a lot of stuff. I just don't want to do crap movies, man, because I just love that I can get up and talk about them and talk to journalists about stuff that I'm really proud of. I mean, fuck, man - there is so much money out there to be made out there in the industry, and unfortunately the most money gets given for the subpar quality projects, so I don't need money to survive. I don't need shit tons of money, I just want to be satisfied all the time, and I want to be proud. I don't want to sit here and talk to you and know that in your mind you're going, "I fucking hated this movie and this guy is a sellout and I hate him." So we've got high expectations of ourselves at Blue Tongue and I've just got a high expectation myself. And I know I've got a brother, Nash, who if I took a step too far out of line or did it a couple of times in a row in terms of choosing the wrong project, he would slap me down (laughs). And I'm like you - I just love good movies. And not every movie you're going to end up in is always going to turn out right, but at least walk into it with the right intention. I have an issue with the commercial aspect of moviemaking: I don't see why a movie can't make a lot of money and also be good. We see at least two or three of them every year. Like last year I think was a really good year for movies, and they made some money and they also satisfied people on a number of levels. But there is some shit movies out there now. - it fucking pisses me off - and I hate it when a shit movie comes out that's obviously made just to make money, and it does make that money and it lets everybody know that it's okay to make shit movies because you can get rich off of it. I hate those people (laughs). There has got to be a business, yes, obviously it's a film business. But at least try along the way.